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Summary

Every entrepreneur faces obstacles.

Some of those obstacles are big, other small, but all impede.

Obstacles keep entrepreneurs from getting that which they want most—success.

But what if, instead of looking at obstacles as roadblocks designed to slow you down from realizing your hopes and dreams, you started looking at obstacles as the building blocks upon which entrepreneurial success is constructed?

Rather than viewing hurdles as hindrances, what if you started looking at those hurdles as your education…

Your training…

The way in which you better yourself each and every day so that—one day—you can actually achieve the level of success you’ve long been searching for?

Creating this kind of mindset shift isn’t easy, but it’s transformative, and if you can pull it off, the sky’s the limit for what you can accomplish in your life.

Doubt it?

Then you should listen to today’s episode of Making Bank with guest Chris Record of Techademics, a company that bridges the gap between the seminar industry and higher education.

Today, Chris is generating millions of dollars in revenue every year, but his life hasn’t always been so lavish.

Growing up in a broken home, living off food stamps in section-8 housing, and dropping out of high school in the 9^th grade, Chris knows what it’s like to grow up on the other side of the tracks. But rather than use his crushing poverty, familial discord, and lack of education as excuses—as obstacles too big to overcome—Chris used those challenges to make himself stronger and more resilient.

So, get ready to hear Chris tell his compelling story to host Josh Felber, and explain why…

• Saying How Can I? is far more powerful than saying I can’t.
• Massive action is the duct tape and WD-40 of life.
• Personal development is the smartest investment you can ever make.
• You don’t have an excuse to NOT have multiple income streams.
• Life is the world’s best educator

And more…

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Overcome Anything with Guest Chris Record: MakingBank S2Ep28

Josh Felber:        Welcome to Making Bank, I am Josh Felber, where we uncover the success strategies and the secrets of the top 1% so you can amplify and transform your life and your business today. I’m really excited for today’s guest. His name is Chris Record, straight down from …

Chris Record:     Just coming from Scottsdale, Arizona right now.

Josh Felber:        Awesome. And Chris, I know you’re all over the internet. A lot of people probably know who you are, but let’s just say some people don’t know who you are. How would you give then a little opening to your background and what you do?

Chris Record:     Sure, so I’d say that a quick overview is that I’m an online marketer. I started out several years ago. I struggled just like everybody else did. I grew up pretty much in a divorced household. My mom was very poor so we grew up on welfare, lived in Section 8 housing, grew up on food stamps. So I basically had this drive to be an entrepreneur. I knew that a job wasn’t just going to make enough money to pay the bills. So through that struggle I knew I wanted to make more money. And my dad was a computer programmer so I was kind of introduced to computers. And so what I did was I kind of married the two together and said I want to be an entrepreneur with something involved with the computer industry. That led me on a journey of how to make money online.

I started with designing websites, then got into search engine optimization, started ranking them in Google, and eventually had my own little agency that I would charge small businesses a fee to pay me. And then eventually when I started making money people wanted me to teach them how. And that’s when I really found my calling, was I decided I actually loved teaching. I loved sharing with people how to make money online so I started creating courses where I would teach them how to advertise on Facebook or how to create engaging content or how to be able to be a digital publisher, whatever it might be. I created these courses and they took off. My first course I sold for just $100 online, put it out there, and it sold 5,000 copies so that was $500,000 for that course. And I realized, wow, not only is this my calling and my passion but it’s profitable.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     So then I started generating several courses per year, was able to scale that to a multimillion dollar business. Then when I hit over $10 million per year I realized, wow, it’s a big deal to run a company this size. So I found a partner and started up a structured company that educates entrepreneurs. The name of that company is Tecademics, which is right here on my hat. My business partner is Jim Piccolo who’s just an amazing guy who has done in his career he’s overseen over a billion dollars in transactions between business and real estate. He’s managed thousands of employees in companies. He’s sold companies for millions of dollars. So I partnered up with him and I said, “Can you take this passion of mine, of helping people make money, can you structure it the way that higher education does and college?” And that’s exactly what Tecademics is. Tecademics bridges the gap between the seminar industry, just shooting information out at you like a fire hose of knowledge and the higher education industry, very structured but very outdated. Higher education doesn’t teach up-to-date internet marketing strategies, how to make money. So we created something in the middle, that’s Tecademics, and that’s what I do now. We’re based out of Scottsdale, Arizona. We have a 25,000 square foot facility.

Josh Felber:        Awesome.

Chris Record:     People from all over the world come and get educated with us.

Josh Felber:        That’s phenomenal. And everybody’s watching like, “Man, Chris you make it sound like it was so easy, that journey.” It’s like it just happened, you know?

Chris Record:     Yeah.

Josh Felber:        I guess first, when did you actually get started online? Was it 2000, early 2000 or later?

Chris Record:     Exactly. You mentioned something. I just told the summary so I went from growing up and divorced all the way to running a multimillion-dollar company. So there were some years in between that and a lot of struggles. I’ll tell you, there was actually a point during that career … So, you got to keep in mind the struggle I think, to relate to a lot of you, is when I was first selling those websites I was living in a 250 square foot studio. I didn’t even have a computer so I would go business to business. I would sell a client on a website and then I would go to the public library and I would use the library computers to build the website.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome.

Chris Record:     And there was a rule where you could only use them 45 minutes at a time and then you had to get back to the line. They would time you and then it would reset. And then there would be like homeless people in line because it was a public library so it’s very, very interesting. I had a struggle with trying to see myself as somebody who could be successful. I was a high school dropout. I had dropped out in the ninth grade, never finished high school even to this day. Never went to college, never had a resume, never had traditional jobs. So it was hard for me to see that I was going to be successful. But one thing I did have was I had action. I was willing to take massive action. So I just went business to business, sold websites, designed in public library.

Then one day someone said, “You know there’s a junior college that has computers you can use all day and they have more programs on them.” Also I didn’t have a car. So I started catching the bus to the downtown bus station and then another connecting bus to the next city over and then another connecting bus to the junior college. So I would take three buses one way to go to a junior college and then I would sit there for about 10 hours in the library at the junior college. And I would work there for about 10 hours at a time teaching myself all this stuff because I didn’t know of these courses back then.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     And this was early 2000s. I didn’t know what courses there were. I didn’t know how to learn it. So I literally self-taught 10 hours at a time at this local junior college in Santa Cruz, California. And then I would catch three buses home. But here’s the thing, is that through that experience I self-taught myself website design and search engine optimization. And it wasn’t easy. I would venture to say I invested hundreds of hours, hundreds of hours behind those computers until I finally even figured out how to rate the site in Google.

Josh Felber:        Sure.

Chris Record:     Once I figured out how to rate the site, I had a skill that was sellable. And I just had this vision that, you know what? Business are going to want to not only have a website but get visitors to the website. So if I can figure this out then I can sell it to them. And that’s what I did. I figured it out, I cracked the code, and then I was able to start selling it, for like a $1,000 for a service I can get your website ranked in Google. But it was hard work. It’s hard work when you don’t even have internet service at your house, you don’t have a computer, you’re eating Top Ramen. As an entrepreneur maybe you make a thousand bucks but then the next month you’re making none.

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     You’re always stressed out. There was days I couldn’t afford to eat so I would drink coffee all day so that it would curb my appetite until I got home. And then I would eat four Top Ramen packages. And people thought I was crazy. I even went to the Thrift Center to buy a suit because I just felt businesses weren’t taking me serious when I looked like a young kid. And so I went to the Thrift Center and I bought a $30 suit from the Salvation Army. And it was this three-piece suit that made me look like a banker. And people would go, “Oh wow, that’s a nice suit. What kind of suit is that?” Right? So I nicknamed it my Salvation Armani, right?

Josh Felber:        Nice.

Chris Record:     I was like, “Oh, it’s my Salvation Armani.” And they’re just like, “Oh?”, like it’s a brand or something.

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     Nope, that’s literally just what it was. So I struggled, I hustled and when I started making money what happened was all my friends wanted to party. I was in my early 20s, all my friends wanted to hang out, they wanted to party, they wanted to do this. They weren’t willing to put in those hours. And I said, “You know what? I’m going to take the time now to put in the work.” And what I did was I literally was putting in 100 hour weeks early in my 20s and I was sacrificing parties, I was sacrificing that fun lifestyle at that time to build my business. But it was worth it because I was able to scale my business to six figures in my early 20s and I was able to be an entrepreneur, a sustainable entrepreneur, since then. And I’ve made at least six figures every year since. Whether it was six figures, seven figures or eight figures online.

And what I will, if you want you can ask me more about that but there was something that happened during that journey. And maybe I’ll just plant an [inaudible 00:08:35] for you guys watching right now. But even after having made multiple six figures I actually quit being an entrepreneur one time because I thought it was so hard. And I just said I just want to move back in with my family and go get a job. That’s how hard sometimes entrepreneurship can be that I actually was ready to quit.

Josh Felber:        Oh yeah.

Chris Record:     And it gets tough, but I persevered and I’m here now so I’m very thankful that I had that journey. And if you guys are watching, don’t give up. You never know. You’re always three feet away from gold. You never know what that next connection will bring.

Josh Felber:        Yeah, I mean that’s a transformational journey from where you came from. What would you say was maybe one or two pivotal pieces or transformational pieces along that journey that really made that switch or made that change? Because to a lot of people you’re out there and I mean you sounded like you were grinding, you’re hustling, you’re really taking action, which a lot of times people start to take a little bit of action and then they run in … You guys, you know how it is, you run into that roadblock or those challenges. And you kept going through that. Or, like you said, you were almost ready to quit as an entrepreneur so what was maybe one or two of those pivotal transformational pieces that allowed you to push through and keep moving down?

Chris Record:     Sure, I’ll tell you my biggest transformational period. And this kind of goes back to that story of wanting to quit as an entrepreneur since you just brought it up.

Josh Felber:        Sure.

Chris Record:     What had happened was I was generating six figures from my internet business but Google kept changing every year. They would change what’s called their algorithm, which means I might be listed number one for a search term in good and then the next year they change it and now I’m listed number 30. So what happens is then for those next two months I’m basically pulling out my hair trying to figure out what this new change was and how to change all my websites to get listed again. So I was used to this. Every year, every two years I would have to update my sites. Well, at this point I was like, “Gosh, I’m just kind of getting tired of this.”, right? So I sold my business. I sold it. I had a friend who said, “Okay, well I’ll buy the business from you.” So I sold the business. I said, “What’s hot right now? You know what’s hot? Real estate.” Real estate was hot. I was in California. It was these roaring 2000s where business, real estate, was booming. But I didn’t realize it was a bubble.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     And so what I did was I actually quit the thing that I knew to go into real estate. And I saw all these loan officers who were making like $30,000 a month, right? $50,000 a month, and I’m going, “That’s just big money.” So I left everything I knew and I decided to work with a guy again and open up our own mortgage office. And he had all the credentials and I had kind of the skills of marketing. And what happened was I had money in savings from the sale and it took about six months. For about six months straight I worked my butt off. Everything was great. We’re getting ready to close on this office and I ran out of money. What happened was the office did not open. We did not get the business set. I ran out of money and I even borrowed a little bit from my family. They didn’t have a lot of money. I even borrowed money from a friend, even a few thousand dollars, trying to do everything I could to keep this vision alive. And this was, I want to say, 2005, 2006 and unfortunately I found myself in the craziest situation I’ve ever been in. I had a negative bank account by $200. My credit was shot because I wasn’t paying my bills. I was putting the money back into the business.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     So I had a 485 credit score. 485 credit, negative bank account. My girlfriend and I were living in an apartment. We were getting evicted. It was like rent was due on the first, it was like the 13th or 14th of the month and the apartment complex they were getting ready to evict us.

Josh Felber:        Wow.

Chris Record:     Facing eviction and I was in a car accident and we were rear-ended in this car accident but it was not their fault. It was crazy. And the car was totaled and I got whiplash. So I found myself in the most rock bottom I had been, out of money, getting evicted, 485 credit score, whiplash, I couldn’t sit in a chair for more than 15 minutes at a time. I got to do stupid wall angels with this ball trying to get myself going. And at that time my friend George called me up and he’s like, “Chris, I know things are rough but I think I have this idea for how we can bounce back.” And I told him, I said, “George, I’m done. I’m out. Entrepreneurship is just too much roller coaster. I’ve had my ups and my downs, I think I’m just going to move back to Santa Cruz, get a stable job, work at a stable company and just be more frugal with money and just not do this roller coaster thing.” He said, “Well at least come to the meeting.” And I was like, “I don’t know, I’m already decided.” He’s like, “Come and just check it out.”

I went that night and I had to stand in the back of the room because I couldn’t sit in a chair. And this guy talked about real estate investing and he talked about the market and he said, “Listen, you can either be a real estate investor or if you just want to make money you can sell our program.” And I said, “Well how much can I make being a salesman?” He said, “Well I’ll pay you $8,000 per client you refer to us.” I said, “How often can I get paid?” He said, “We can pay you twice a week.” I said, “So if I refer you somebody right now I get paid twice a week for this right now with this?”

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     And instantly I saw high-ticket item, I’d get paid right away. I said, “Hail Mary, let’s go for it. I don’t know if it’ll work but let’s go for it.” And I started placing ads all over, Craigslist and online, and I started going out and putting signs everywhere and flyers and I just went crazy. I said, “I’m going to give myself two weeks.” And it went incredibly well. I went from literally quitting being an entrepreneur, getting evicting. And actually, I ended up still getting evicted because I didn’t make the money in two days. But I was able to bounce back. That first month I made $16,000 in commissions with a brand new company.

Josh Felber:        Wow.

Chris Record:     The next month $24,000, the next month was over $32,000 because I was making $8,000 a pop. Next month was like $32,000, then it jumped to like $50,000, then to $70,000. Then in my eighth month in that business as a sales rep, just as a sales rep, made $150,000 in a single month in commissions.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome.

Chris Record:     Which was I made more money that month in commissions than I had ever made in an entire year. And this was from a guy who I started only able to sit 15 minutes at a time and being whiplashed and losing everything, not having a car, not having the apartment, having to couch surf a little bit and no money. I had no money to advertise or anything. So I’m telling you that when your dream’s big enough and you’re passionate and you’re just not willing to let anything stop you … And this was in the face of adversity where I wanted to quit.

Josh Felber:        Sure.

Chris Record:     This wasn’t like, “I’ll do whatever it takes.” It’s kind of like, “I don’t know man, I’m done.” That was my attitude. But I still was able that year made around $500,000 in commissions that I got paid, very little overhead on that, and was able to bounce back. And just from there I figured if I can get through that then I can get through anything.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome.

Chris Record:     And so I’ve had so many obstacles since then but you become a stronger person and you’re just able to handle the obstacles a lot better. And I think about it like a weightlifting analogy. Which is if we went to the gym right now and you put 250 pounds on a bench press or something I probably couldn’t lift it. I just don’t think I could lift it. 250 pounds, maybe 300 pounds for sure I couldn’t lift. But here’s the thing, if … So that seems like the 350-pound bench press is like a big objection that I just do not see I can work my way through. But as I go to the gym every single day and get stronger and stronger and stronger, eventually I will be at a point where I can lift that once. And then eventually twice and then eventually I’ll be at a point where I can bench press 300 pounds 10 times. I just start doing sets of it. And that’s what happens. What happens is the weight doesn’t get any lighter. This is the thing, the weight doesn’t get lighter, you become stronger.

And that’s exactly what happened. I love these adversities because through each adversity I become stronger and each time that I get stronger what happens is that I’m able to push through. And that’s what I want to encourage everybody watching is that when life hits you just realize in that moment, realize that if I, when I is even a better word, when I overcome this adversity I’m going to be stronger. So now you’re going to get more adversities like that and they’re going to seem like nothing. They’re just going to seem like nothing. You’re going to be able to rep them out like they’re nothing. And so that was the biggest moment in my life because that was the moment where I was going to either quit and go one direction or just give it a shot and go the other.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     And I’m so glad I did because I had my best year ever. I can’t believe I was about to quit, you know?

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome. And I mean as entrepreneurs, and even myself I’ve owned 15 companies since I was 14 and there’s been plenty of times along the way you’re just there and it’s like, “Man, is this really going to happen? And I’ve been putting in all this work and all this work. Is it actually going to turn the corner ever?” And that next day or that next week it happens and that change happens. And so that’s awesome to hear your journey. And what’s interesting too is your language patterns that you utilize with what you’re saying. You know, “I, and this is going to happen.” In your mind that you’ve already planted that seed, that certain things are already happening. Not, “Well, I hope this happens or it may.” It’s you’re focused and you’re driven and you’ll continue to move forward taking action. What would be three I guess key steps that has really led to your overall success past that where you’ve gotten to today?

Chris Record:     Okay, so three steps. I would say the first is personal development.

Josh Felber:        Okay.

Chris Record:     Since I was 21 years old I got turned on to personal development books, audios, I’ve gone to seminars, I’ve been to networking events, I’ve had mentors and coaches, I’ve been to Masterminds. I’m all about soaking up knowledge. In fact, right now we’re here in San Diego at an event to be able to meet people and expand the network.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     So I’d say personal development. I’m always going and I’m always trying to learn how to be better. And so all these books I read … You mentioned something interesting which is language patterns. It’s not like I naturally had … You know what my natural language pattern was? It was like curse words and I was just a young kid. I cursed, my belief patterns were extremely low. I had very low self-esteem, believe it or not. I was willing to take action but me and my friends, when we were young, a lot of us had the attitude of, “Ah,”, because of the way we grew up, “that’s not in our cards.”

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     “Yeah, oh those rich kids with their rich, spoiled parents. Yeah, they’re going to …” “Oh, these people are going to college. Well of course they got it good.” We just had this attitude. I mean some of the kids I hung out with, it was so rough a lot of us didn’t even believe we’d live to be 18. So it was a very interesting mindset and belief patterns I came from. So words, I learned in books, that the words that we speak we end up believing. And so take that story of me with 485 credit score and a negative bank account, getting evicted, being in a car accident, losing all this kind of stuff and quitting on entrepreneurship. Life can knock you down like that, but what I did in that state was instead of saying, “I can’t.” I said, “How can I?”

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     And just those three words right there, from I can’t to how can I, when you say I can’t your subconscious mind shuts down. It does not even look for ways to be able to do it. You might have solutions right in front of you but if you tell yourself I can’t you’re not even going to look for solutions. Just by opening your mind and saying how can I, your subconscious mind is so powerful, right? And you know it’s powerful because it can retrieve information from years behind. Our subconscious mind is potentially more powerful than a computer. So what you got to do is you’ve got to train your subconscious mind to look for ideas. Instead of saying I can’t, say how can I? Next thing you know I might be riding on a bus broke in a Thrift Center suit, but if my mind’s saying how can I?, how can I?, I might drive by a sign on the road and go, “You know what? I got an idea.” I might drive by a business and say, “Oh my god, I’ve got an idea.” Keep your mind looking. Keep your mind open. So my first thing is the personal development. You’ve got to train your mind, get good information in. Because society’s giving you bad information.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     Today I had a conversation with somebody who said, “Chris, man I’m in my last $6 in my back account. You know, you got to help. What can I do?” I’m like, “Get a job.” He goes, “Man, I can’t get a job. I’ve already sent out 23 applications over the last three years. I mean I’ve been trying.” And I sat there and thought, “Wow, his mindset, his patterns are saying that 23 job applications in three years is a lot of work.”

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     And his family and friends are saying, “Oh man, the job market is tough.” See the difference? When you believe society you’re going to just fall victim. When you don’t believe society … Look, if I was out there and if I wanted to get a job I would do 23 applications a day. Go out there, go business to business.

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     “I don’t even care if you’re hiring. Let me introduce myself and let me tell you why I could be an asset to your company.” “Where’s your resume?” “You know what? I don’t want to give you my resume and have you put in a stack of people. If that’s how you hire people, good luck with that list because I bring a lot more to the table than a resume ever could.” And you just get in there and you start taking action. You go to 20 businesses like that every single day, you’re not only going to get hired, you’re going to be the highest paid person in that company. You’re going to create jobs. They’re not advertising for a job but they need you. They just don’t know they need you. So personal development trains you to do that. So I would say number one, personal development.

Number two, take massive action. Nothing happens when you’re just sitting and watching. Even right now you’re watching this, sure you’re watching this, you’re going to get motivated, you’re going to get inspired, maybe you’re going to learn something. But none of that makes money. The only thing that makes money is action. You’re going to do nothing. This guy put out 23 resumes in three years and told me he’s already taken a bunch of action. That’s not action. I’m talking about massive action. I’m talking about 10-Xing everything. Whatever you think is good, whatever society tells you is good, don’t believe them. Believe yourself and prove everybody wrong, okay? So number one, personal development. Fix your mindset. Get good in, get good out. Number two, take massive action.

And then number three, and this one is more recent for me. I’ve made millions of dollars in my career and had nothing to show for it. And probably the biggest regret … I don’t know if it’s a regret. I don’t really have regrets.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     It’s like you just learn. But I would say that I would be a lot further had I been a better steward with money. And so that’s always fresh on my mind, especially on a topic like Making Bank. You can make bank and still be just as broke, okay? I was talking to somebody downstairs at this event that said, “You know, these people make a million dollars and then the next year their business isn’t doing so well and they have to start over from scratch.” Don’t start over. If you’re going to build an empire what you want to do is you want to create, you want to basically reinvest your money back into your business, diversify it, be a good steward of money. When you can be trusted with money and be a good steward of it then you can be trusted with more. You have to be scalable. If you’re not good with $10,000 a month or even $1,000 … Right now, if you’re broke right now and not able to do things, if you’re not being a good steward of the resources you have right now, then you’re not going to be a good steward with 10 times those resources.

Money’s not going to solve your problems. What’s going to solve your problems is you becoming the problem solver, right? Money is just one vehicle of many. Don’t think money’s going to solve your problems. Become the person, become the person that, “I can solve this problem with or without money. I’m a problem solver.” And so that’s exactly what I did is I learned how to be a better steward of money. I learned how to be able to reinvest it. I learned how to be able to buy things in the proper way, wait until I could afford things cash, not get too far out front. And that’s made the world of difference for me being able to scale a business from $100,000 a year to over a million dollars a month. And that would be my three biggest things.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome. And I mean all three super important topics. I know one of the big things for us this year is really just focusing on how can we then diversify from a financial standpoint, so reduce taxes as much and invest and generate those additional areas of income through investments and everything. And it was funny your story about the applications. I just read an article, it was probably last week or something, it was a guy boxed up his resume with donuts and he sent them to all the major firms. I don’t remember if it was engineering or something that he wanted to get into. But top ones. Because he kept striking out and striking out. And then he did and literally 90% of all the ones he sent invited him in for an interview and he pretty much had his pick of jobs.

Chris Record:     That’s awesome.

Josh Felber:        So it’s being creative.

Chris Record:     Creative.

Josh Felber:        And taking massive action but then being creative as well.

Chris Record:     Yeah.

Josh Felber:        To really differentiate yourself from the noise in the marketplace.

Chris Record:     Creativity is key. I preach creativity. In fact, if I’m known for one thing it’s being a creative marketer. You know, if you want creative ideas I would say this, a lot of people are stuck on trying to get a job or career in one specific thing that you’re well trained in.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     You know what? There are skills right now that are so in demand that companies will fight over you. Why not learn that skill as well? And then no matter what you’ve always got something. I’ll give you an example. Facebook advertising, okay? I deal with this on a day-to-day basis. My company right now, it’s hard to find good Facebook advertisers, right? So why not? People don’t realize, like I’ll have on one hand somebody goes, “Oh man, the job market’s so hard.” No, I run a business. You know what’s hard? Hiring people. That’s hard.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     Finding people to work for us. That’s actually the hard problem. Don’t ever believe anybody that the market’s bad with something. You know, you can learn a skill that’s in demand. If you are a good Facebook advertiser, which is a skill that you could learn inside of a year, it’s a skill you could learn without a college degree. I don’t even think they teach Facebook advertising in colleges. Here’s an example of a skill that can be self-taught from home. Literally, somebody can learn it in probably as little as three months, as much as a year. And that skill right there, probably an entry position $5,000 a month. But really a skilled position, 10 or $20,000 a month.

If you’re an entrepreneur-minded person you could actually have an agency where businesses are paying you $5,000 a month. You could have 10 of those. You know, it’s crazy. That’s just one example. Being creative, and what you do is … Nobody’s hiring for a Facebook advertiser. People don’t place ads for that kind of stuff. So you might think, “Well, I applied to the five people that are hiring.” No, you can literally go to a business and say, “Listen, I want to sit down with you. This is what I do. This is my skillset and here’s my idea on how I can help you be an incredible company with Facebook advertising. I can help get your message out.” And they’re going to hear that and they’re going to want to hire you.

True story, Peter, who I’m with right now, we just went and got a meal last night at this little healthy place. I think it was called Bowl of Greens or something like that in Scottsdale. And we’re just like, “Oh my god, this food is so amazing. It’s so good.” But there was nobody in there.

Josh Felber:        Oh.

Chris Record:     Nobody in there. And then the owner came out and saw us doing some stuff on the computer. He goes, “What do you guys do?” This owner was trying to throw money at us saying, “Man I would love to hire somebody. I don’t have the social media experience. I don’t know how to get my business up on Yelp. I don’t know to get what videos to show this kind of stuff.” He was trying to throw money at us but we’re doing different things now. We’re like, “Hey listen, we’ll try to send you a referral or something.” Businesses have money and they want to give it to you if you’re creative. Just like this.

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     You take your resume, you bundle it with some donuts, you do something. If there’s a hundred resumes how can you stand out? And that’s exactly what I would do. I would go business to business. I would stand out in some creative way, bring something new to the table that everybody else doesn’t do. Become a creative marketer and then suddenly the world is yours. You can do anything that you want. So I would say creativity if there was a fourth thing out of that. Creativity’s one of the big ones.

Josh Felber:        Cool. Awesome. We got a few minutes left. Since you’re like online super marketer, self-taught expert, I’d love to get a couple online marketing tips people can take away whether it’s Facebook, Google, whatever you feel is really working for you right now and your clients and everything. What can they take away and really implement in their business right now?

Chris Record:     Sure. Cool, so my company Tecademics, what we teach is we teach entrepreneur education. So we teach, as an entrepreneur, how to be able to succeed more online. We have a very specific focus with online marketing, okay? We believe online marketing is not tapped out at all. In fact, most people don’t even know what they’re doing online. So it’s a huge opportunity. I would say right now one of the biggest ways if you’re looking to make money, if you’re looking for an extra stream of revenue, there is a company called Shopify which is the world’s largest e-commerce platform. It’s something that a lot of people don’t really realize how simple it is to be able to set up. And I’ve been able to help the average person to be able to make money. So if you currently are looking for an extra stream of revenue, I would suggest Shopify. This is what we teach at Tecademics, set up your own store, okay? It’s like literally a very, very low monthly fee. And then you can add products to it. The best part is the products don’t have to be yours. You go to these wholesale sites and you just click on the pictures that you want on your site. So you literally just add products with one click to your store.

Your store could have your own little logo on it, it can have your own name. It looks like your own store. It’s got all these products. So you take a niche, like let’s say fishing, something you’re passionate about, or golfing or whatever it might be, and you go find a bunch of fishing related products, fishing poles, fishing reels, fishing lures, fishing equipment, accessories. You go find it all and you build out this little store. It’s as little as maybe a day for some people, maybe a week for some others. And just in your spare time, while you’re watching football or something, you have a little e-commerce business. And so now you’ve got this store. The products aren’t even yours and when an order comes in, somebody purchases the product, the money comes to you and then you turn around and you copy and paste their information to the wholesaler. The wholesaler is the one who has the inventory. They’ll ship it directly to your customer.

This process is called drop shipping and this makes it so simple to make money online it’s crazy. You have your store. I’ve got a fishing reel on there. I don’t have to have a fishing reel. I don’t have to know anything or do anything about it. My price for the fishing reel is $15 from the wholesaler. I just mark it up to $29.95. So I collect $30 plus maybe some shipping and then I go give the wholesaler $15. The wholesaler ships it directly to the customer. I don’t deal with that at all. And the wholesaler does what’s called drop shipping which means it doesn’t have any of their company name on it. So I’m able to have a business with very little overhead, no inventory, no shipping, no handling, no products, no garage full of stuff. All I need now is traffic. And what we do at Tecademics is we teach you how to place these tiny little $5 a day ads. So for $5 a day, for the price of a cup of coffee, you could be running your own e-commerce business.

Josh Felber:        Wow, that’s awesome.

Chris Record:     And what we do is we go on Facebook. The reason we do Facebook is because Facebook has all the information out there. They got everybody’s information. They know exactly who likes fishing. They know exactly who likes these certain fishing brands, who likes these certain fishing pages. So you can advertise directly to people that are likely to buy those products. And these little $5 ads are like throwing out bait, okay? Fishing analogy, right? It’s like throwing out bait, you try the little $5 ad, does it sell a fishing pole or not? If it doesn’t sell it, you run it for a day or two, if it doesn’t you stop it, okay? You’re out maybe 5 or $10 dollars. But then you go try another one. Let me try selling these fishing lures. A $5 a day ad for a couple days. It either works or it doesn’t. You’re in essence fishing, right? And then what happens is you try, try, try.

Now you’ve got a $5 a day ad and, boom, it sells two fishing poles. You’re like, “Wait, I just invested $5 and I just made $30 in profit.” Boom, you got a winner. You pause your losers, you scale your winners. Next thing you know you can sell … Maybe you’re only making $5 profit on a product but you have Facebook. They have millions of people that want to buy it. So now you can scale to maybe selling 1,000 a month and then 1,000 a week. It’s a powerful home-based business. You can get a family member, like a spouse or someone, to help run it. It’s a powerful business. Shopify is something you should look into. If you need help or training or support we teach it at Tecademics. That’s something you can look into. But honestly, you could even just do a lot of research online on Google, YouTube, find bloggers. They’ll teach you how to do this. It’s a powerful way to make money. We have students making literally as much as $10,000 a month part-time, $100,000 a month. Some students doing over a million dollars a month. So it’s powerful.

Josh Felber:        It’s awesome. Yeah, and we use … My wife owns a really big skincare company so we use Shopify for everything.

Chris Record:     There you go.

Josh Felber:        And Facebook’s made it super easy for placing ads.

Chris Record:     Yeah.

Josh Felber:        I mean it walks you through every step of the way.

Chris Record:     Beginners can do it.

Josh Felber:        Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

Chris Record:     Yeah, it’s crazy.

Josh Felber:        And you don’t have to know, oh, where do I need to go? You just target who you want to target and it walks you through and put your picture up and get rocking and rolling.

Chris Record:     Back in the day I had to teach myself this stuff. These days there’s a lot of education out there.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     A lot of it’s even free you guys. We sell courses and I tell people go get some free information first. Learn the foundation if you can because there’s so much information on the internet. Right now you have no excuse not to be making extra money. Now if you already have a business maybe you don’t want to start up a side income, same thing. Learn how to leverage social media, paid advertising on social media, because it’s scalable. If you can figure out how to spend $10 and make $20, then you could spend $100 to make $2,000, you could spend $1,000, you can keep going and you can spend to make $10,000, $20,000 and beyond.

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     Leverage. Find something scalable, automate it. Facebook advertising is probably the best medium I use to be able to scale my business from hundreds of thousands to millions.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome. What’s one piece of technology that you can’t live without?

Chris Record:     That I can’t live without?

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     Wow. Well for me, I mean I’m always on the road so for me it’s obviously my mobile device, the invention of smartphones is the greatest thing ever. I run my business mostly off of my mobile device. But I don’t know, everybody’s got a mobile phone.

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     I don’t know that that counts.

Josh Felber:        Any specific apps or anything that really help you leverage your time and day.

Chris Record:     The technology I can’t live without? You know what I would say it is? I would say it’s video. And the reason I say video is even as we’re right here, we’re doing this video, we’re also live-streaming on two other channels.

Josh Felber:        Yeah.

Chris Record:     We’re also taking a B-roll video and a backup. I would say, listen, there’s one trend that you should get in front of for your business it’s video, which you’re doing clearly.

Josh Felber:        Right.

Chris Record:     And here’s why. Video is your way to be able to reach the masses and your audience. In order to get people to buy from your people need three things. They need to know who you are, they need to know you. They need to like you. And they need to trust you. And this could work for a brand. You could be building a brand like this but they need to know what this brand is, like it and trust it. Know it, like it and trust it. Video is the best resource to be able to help get to know somebody, like somebody and trust somebody.

If you’re not using video in your business you’re losing the most effective tool that currently exists to be able to deliver value out there in a know, like and trust factor. And when you get to the point, like Josh is doing here with the show, people get to know him, they get to like him and then they get to trust him because he’s delivering this value to you, so that then when Josh has something to sell they’re like, “Hey, I’ve already got so much in value from this. I’m absolutely going to buy that.” That’s the factor. Video is the key. And I would say because that’s in my smartphone and that’s the one technology, just hangouts, lives, Facebooks, you name it, that technology is the future.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome. No, I think that’s great because a lot of people are like, “Oh, apps and this and all that.” But I think, like you said, video where it’s going, I know one of the big initiatives this year since I’ve been really helping my wife scale our skincare company is video. We hired a video guy. He follows her around all day long, what it takes to build a company.

Chris Record:     Nice.

Josh Felber:        Almost like Sam here.

Chris Record:     Yeah, I got my [crosstalk 00:35:15].

Josh Felber:        And really what’s all involved because people don’t see that and all they see is, okay cool, you’re selling your products and your training and she has her skincare products. But what does it really take? I mean we got three kids as you have kids and there’s a lot more involved in it then just like, boom, pop up and lots of sales coming in.

Chris Record:     Absolutely, and I like the fact that you have children. I’ve got children myself. I think that’s a nice thing is that no matter where you’re at in your life, whether you’re a stay-at-home parent, whether you have children, you’re balancing work and relationships and business and maybe fitness and health and all this. It can all be done. Don’t stress out on this, okay? Entrepreneurship, I used to stress on it. Now I have fun. Go out there and have fun, make money, find something that gives you passion so every single morning you look forward to waking up. You cannot wait to wake up in the morning to do it all again because you love it so much.

And if you don’t feel that way about the industry you’re in, the career you’re in or anything, then change it up. Just take this as a lesson. Take this as a message. Change it. Life is too short to not be doing what you love. If you have children, you’re passionate about children, every day when you’re passionate, when you wake up a passion then you’re going to enjoy the journey. And if you don’t enjoy the journey it’s going to be stressful and hectic and it’s going to be crazy. And that’s more important than any sort of modern tip or technique. It’s just if you’re not currently fully passionate every single day when you wake up you’re probably not on the right track. You might need to rethink what you’re doing, realign yourself. Because life should be amazing and you should experience it to the fullest.

Josh Felber:        And on that note, Chris I just want to thank you for coming on Making Bank today, taking your time out and everything. Guys, I hope you guys were taking notes. If not, rewind and go back, play this again and again and again. There is so much information loaded in today’s interview with Chris from personal development to knowing your mindset, breaking through those barriers and everything that you have. So again, it was an honor to have you on the show today.

Chris Record:     Absolutely.

Josh Felber:        Cool man.

Chris Record:     My pleasure.

Josh Felber:        Well thanks again. I am Josh Felber. You are watching Making Bank today. Get out and be extraordinary.